Abstract P3-11-09: Extracellular vesicle-based biomarker assay for the monitoring of the efficacy of frontline endocrine therapy + CDK4-6 inhibitors in metastatic breast cancer
Authors: Mathilde Richard, Jean Sebastien FRENEL, Laurent Mathiot, Mario Campone, Mathilde Colombie, Marie Robert, Anne Patsouris, Frederic Bigot, Julie Gavard, Gwennan André-Grégoire, Laetitia Guevel
Journal: Cancer Research (2023)

Abstract CONTEXT: Endocrine therapy combined with CDK4/6 inhibitor is the standard frontline treatment for the vast majority of HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients. Despite an overall survival benefit, patients eventually progress and mechanisms of resistance to this combination are not well identified. Non-invasive monitoring of the efficacy of treatment could help into tailoring therapeutic regimen. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are a group of heterogeneous nanosized bioparticles (30-1000nm), released by almost all cell types - including tumor, platelets, and immune cells – carrying informative biological material emanating from the mother cell and circulating in the blood stream. In this project, we ambition to assess whether the vesiclemia, i.e. plasmatic extracellular vesicle concentration can be used as a clinic-biological parameter to assist in the monitoring of patients. METHODS: EPICURE is an ongoing pilot prospective cohort study of heterogeneous and massive data integration, i.e. multi-omics approaches in MBC patients. The present study focused on patients with HR+/HER2- MBC receiving frontline endocrine therapy+iCDK4/6. Plasma samples were drawn every 3 months during the treatment until progression. The workflow for the enrichment of circulating EVs was developed from frozen plasma. A semi-automatized isolation procedure using size exclusion chromatography combined with the newly developed interference light microscopy apparatus Videodrop allowed to routinely separate plasmatic EVs and quantify vesiclemia in a fast and reliable manner for a large number of samples (longitudinal follow-up of MBC patients). RESULTS: 26 patients were included and monitored for vesiclemia. Median age was 58.5y (±13.7). Metastatic disease sites were distributed as follows: bone metastases (21; 84%), liver (21; 84%), thoracic (10; 40%), node (2; 8%), brain (1; 4%), others (2; 8%). Endocrine therapy included aromatase inhibitors (20; 77%), fulvestrant (6; 29%), GnRH agonists (5; 19%) and CDK4/6 inhibitors palbocilib (15; 57%), abemaciclib (8; 31%) and ribociclib (3; 11%). With a median follow-up time of 22.1 months (95%CI 21.2 - not reached), median progression free survival was 21.8 months (95%CI 18.1 - not reached). Median time on treatment was 19.4 months (IQR 11.6 - 22.1). Objective response rate was confirmed in 12 patients (6 with complete response). Out of the 26 patients, 12 stopped the frontline treatment due to disease progression. 135 longitudinal follow-up samples were analyzed for EVs. All patients who progressed rapidly after treatment initiation (i.e median PFS&amp;lt; 6 months) had an increased vesiclemia at the months 2 and 6 after inclusion. Conversely, patients who had a median PFS &amp;gt;18m had a stable vesiclemia during this period. CONCLUSION This study aims to use circulating EVs as a therapeutic companion to anticipate treatment resistance and tumor progression in MBC patients. Our preliminary data suggest that the vesiclemia could be used as a predictive tool to anticipate treatment failure, and thus might be used to tailor treatments in time. Citation Format: Mathilde Richard, Jean Sebastien FRENEL, Laurent Mathiot, Mario Campone, Mathilde Colombie, Marie Robert, Anne Patsouris, Frederic Bigot, Julie Gavard, Gwennan André-Grégoire, Laetitia Guevel. Extracellular vesicle-based biomarker assay for the monitoring of the efficacy of frontline endocrine therapy + CDK4-6 inhibitors in metastatic breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-11-09.